First, let us try to say some nice things about SAVING EMILY. Annie Bovaird is fine as the cute kid in the title role. Bruce Boxleitner is OK as the concerned male head of household. Keara Johnston is eye catching in her first supporting part. Michael Riley pulls no punches playing the psycho/weirdo ex-hubby. And... OK, that is about all there is.

SAVING EMILY is laughably bad. Very bad. Several questions beg to be asked: Why would Mr. Big ever trust the psycho with $600,000 in the first place? Why would Mr. Big ever bother to physically go to a murder scene? If Emily needs to be saved, then why in the world was Uncle Theo not tested to see if he would be a match?! How could the writer have Emily's mother say about the psycho ex-husband, "this time, I trust him" -- two, three, four times -- and not expect the viewers to laugh?

Saving Emily is pretty hopeless.

The protagonist Cheryl Wilton is played by Alexandra Paul, who deserves a "Lifetime" achievement award for her work in so many cable melodramas. In "Saving Emily," Paul plays the devoted mother of a girl with leukemia who is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant. The only possible candidate is Cheryl's lout of an ex-husband named Kurt Bradford.

Kurt is one of the sleaziest characters imaginable. During his marriage to Cheryl, he squandered the money of Cheryl's wealthy Uncle Theo. He never wanted a child and showed no affection to little Emily. He was also abusive to Cheryl. After he killed a man and demanded that Cheryl provide him with an alibi, she raced out of the house with daughter Emily in tow. Kurt subsequently spent eight years in prison, and he never forgave Cheryl.

Fast forward ten years, and Cheryl visits Kurt, asking him to save the life of their daughter. Kurt is in now debt to a local mob boss to the tune of $600,000, and that is his asking price for the procedure. There ensues a wild set of negotiations with Cheryl and her husband Greg desperately trying to come up with the funds.

The film is held together by the wonderful performance of Alexandra Paul, who hits all the right notes in her portrayal of a mother, wife, and super negotiator with the ex-husband from hell. The filmmakers remarkably were able to squeeze an ounce of sympathy out of the repellent character of Kurt. The best scene in the film was the climactic transaction in the hospital where the dying Kurt returns the wedding ring to Cheryl and donates the bone marrow to Emily. The act of kindness of Kurt Bradford was a genuine moment of bathos worthy of an eight-star rating.